Rank & File (Anchor Point Book 4)

by L. A. Witt

  I almost—almost—suggested it was something we could do together.

  But something told me that would be pushing my luck with the Navy and with Will.

  We spent most of the weekend doing exactly what I’d expected—enjoying each other’s company during the day, enjoying each other’s bodies at night. It was such a switch from our usual secrecy, and I reveled in being so relaxed and comfortable with him. Leisurely meals that hadn’t been delivered to one of our apartments. Taking our sweet time walking through a couple of museums. Just being together.

  I’d missed this. Vince and I had been open about our relationship for a long time, and I’d taken for granted being able to go out like straight couples did all the time.

  But it wasn’t that Brent was filling in a void my ex had left. Going out in public with Brent didn’t feel anything like it had with Vince. Now that I’d gone out with Brent, and we’d walked the streets like a normal couple, I realized just how different we were from me and Vince.

  Vince and I had been . . . comfortable. I’d loved him, and there’d been a strong attraction between us even to the end, but seeing Brent in the daylight took my breath away.

  His light-brown hair had reddish highlights I’d never seen before. His blue eyes were more vivid in natural light, and his smile was . . . wow. Maybe he was extra relaxed being this far from the base and his job, or maybe he was letting his guard down since no one was going to catch us, but he laughed more easily, and every time I glanced at him, he’d smile that smile and make my knees weak.

  When we’d first started out, every time I saw him, I wanted to be in bed with him. That hadn’t faded at all, but when I looked at him now, all I could think was I don’t want to be away from you. It didn’t matter if we were naked. If we were out in public or cuddled up in the dark. If we were passing in the halls at work or falling into bed. I was as content to sit across from him at a table, sipping coffee while the afternoon went on around us, as I was to fuck him up against our hotel room window.

  As long as you’re here, I’m happy, no matter where here is.

  I didn’t remember ever feeling like this with Vince. Not this strongly, anyway. And, in fact, thinking about Vince didn’t make me feel much at all now. Which was good—it meant I was getting over him. Or maybe I’d already gotten over him.

  But it was dangerous too.

  Because it meant something about how I felt about Brent.

  And we couldn’t go there. We just couldn’t.

  I stole a glance at him under the streetlights as we walked off an amazing dinner, and the light caught his eyes like it always did, and my heart fluttered.

  Too late, fucker. Already there.

  The next morning, I woke up first but didn’t get out of bed right away. I didn’t wake Brent either. It was hard as hell to keep my hands off him, but I didn’t want to disturb him quite yet. After today, there was no telling if we’d ever have a chance to wake up in the same bed again, and for a minute, I wanted to enjoy the view.

  He’d been sleeping on his stomach for most of the night, but at some point, he’d turned onto his side. He was facing me now, partway buried in the hotel’s obscenely fluffy pillows, and despite having longer hair than mine, he somehow still looked neat and put together. I could’ve sworn I’d disheveled the hell out of his hair last night. Now it was all lying the way it usually did, with maybe a few strands here and there that were slightly out of place.

  The dusting of stubble on his jaw and across his top lip didn’t do much to lessen his baby face. He was one of those guys who would always look a few years younger than he was, at least until he started getting some gray to even things out.

  That mental image made my toes curl. If he was hot at this age, he was going to be jaw-dropping once he was closer to mine.

  I glanced at the time. It was almost nine, so we still had a couple of hours before we needed to check out. I was pretty sure breakfast went until at least ten thirty. If not, there were plenty of other places we could eat.

  As I faced him again . . . nope. Still couldn’t disturb him. I wasn’t normally one to stare at a man while he slept, but I normally wasn’t involved with someone I couldn’t risk spending a whole night with. Indulging this one time hardly seemed like it should be out of the question.

  The longer I gazed at him, the more I saw. He had a little scar above his eyebrow. Maybe half an inch long, and so faint I only noticed because the light hit it just right. There was another hiding below the part of his hair. Probably the souvenirs of a rough-and-tumble childhood. I had a few myself.

  I also hadn’t noticed how much tension he always carried until now. His face was completely relaxed, and I realized that his brow was usually furrowed like there was something stressing him out. His lips—parted slightly—almost always had a certain amount of tightness in them unless they were occupied.

  A mix of guilt and concern tugged at me. How much of that tension was because of me? Obviously some of it predated our relationship—there were faint lines across his forehead and between his eyebrows where stress had worked itself into creases that were probably permanent.

  A different flavor of guilt worked its way under my skin. It wasn’t uncommon for those of us in the enlisted ranks to snark about how “rough” the officers must have it. We joked that Officer Candidate School and the Academy were finishing school for those too delicate to go to boot camp.

  Of course I knew there was plenty of stress and loads of demands put on officers. I didn’t envy them for the decisions they had to make, especially in combat situations. If I struggled with the idea of a couple of my young MAs walking into a volatile domestic call on my watch, I could only imagine what it was like to order an aircraft carrier and its crew of five thousand to sail into potentially hostile territory.

  But still, there was a certain amount of animosity between their ranks and ours. We were the ones who got our hands dirty, did the grunt work, and got paid significantly less. In fact, even though I hadn’t looked at the pay charts in a long time, I’d have bet good money that Brent—an O-3 with just a few years under his belt—earned significantly more than I did as an E-8 after damn near twenty years. A fucking ensign probably still earned more than I did.

  So yeah, I’d long ago jumped on the us versus them bitterness bandwagon. But now I was sharing a bed with an officer. A young one. One who was still early in his career, long before he’d ever have to point an aircraft carrier into unfriendly waters or send a unit of ground troops into the line of fire.

  The thought of him being in that position made me want to pull him into my arms, even if it meant waking him up. It was a weird feeling, suddenly being fiercely protective of a man who was a few levels above my paygrade. He wasn’t a kid—especially not like my young MAs who were less than a year out of high school—but in a way, he was. Too young, I thought, to be carrying that much stress. And it would only get worse the further he went up the ranks. Didn’t I know it.

  Brent murmured something and burrowed into the pillow. His stubble hissed across the fabric. Then his eyelids fluttered, and as soon as they were open, his gaze fixed right on me. The sleepy smile that spread across his lips made my blood pump faster. How could someone be that simultaneously sexy and adorable?

  As I stared at him, I suddenly understood why I was so irrationally protective of him—I wanted him to be happy. With his career, with me, with everything. Like no one else I’d ever been with, his happiness was almost painfully important to me.

  So this is what it feels like to be willing to move mountains for someone.

  He slid a hand up my chest. “Morning.”

  “Morning.” I kissed his forehead. “Sleep well?”

  “Oh my God, yeah. Like the dead.” He yawned and scrubbed his hand over his face. “How long have you been awake, anyway?”

  “Long enough to stare creepily at you.”

  Brent laughed. He slid closer and cuddled against me. “Better be careful doing that. You’ll give
yourself a boner that I’ll have to take care of.”

  I guided his hand under the sheets. “Funny you should mention that . . .”

  All too soon, we had to leave our comfortable bed and huge room. After one last long, sensual roll between the sheets, we went downstairs for a leisurely breakfast. Then we checked out of the hotel, but we still had several hours before we needed to head back to the coast, so we left our bags in our cars and the cars in the parking garage.

  The day was chilly, but not unpleasant. Brisk and crisp, if anything.

  Our walk took us past a few shops, and then a cab took us out to the Japanese gardens that we’d discussed on Saturday. They weren’t in full bloom this time of year, and certainly not crowded, but it was a nice place to wander around. The grounds were meticulously groomed, and the hardier plants that could stand the wet chill of a Pacific Northwest November were green and robust.

  “We should come back here when the cherry blossoms bloom,” I said. “I’ve never been much of a flower guy, but I have to say—they’re gorgeous.”

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “Not here, no. But I went to a cherry blossom festival in Japan.” I chuckled at the memory. “If you ever get the chance, go to one of those. Like, in Japan. Not here.”

  “Oh yeah?” He glanced at me, eyebrows up. “What are they like?”

  “They’re something else. The parades get kind of wild, and the music is awesome. The street food . . .” I laughed, shaking my head. “Let’s just say you want to be careful what you order.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Because you might think you’re ordering a pastry with fruit in it, and realize at the last second there’s a goddamned tentacle sticking out.”

  He burst out laughing, oblivious to what that did to me. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. One of my buddies got what he thought was a pancake with fruit in it. Turns out it was, as he called it, an octo-pancake.”

  Brent wrinkled his nose. “Gross.”

  “Eh, he said it wasn’t half bad. He just wasn’t expecting it.”

  “Surprise tentacle,” Brent said with a smirk. “It is another world over there, isn’t it?”

  “It is. I still have my fingers crossed I’ll get orders there eventually. I’d love to actually live in Japan and see what it’s really like.”

  “Yeah, me too.” He glanced at me again, and his smile faded. So did mine. As if there weren’t already plenty of things ready and waiting to separate us, there was one more—the reality that the Navy would eventually send one or both of us to another base.

  I didn’t want to think about that, though. Not today.

  I cleared my throat. “I ever tell you about the time my buddies and I ended up shooting pool with a bunch of guys we thought were yakuza?”

  His eyes widened. “No way.”

  “Yep. Ironically, we weren’t at one of the clubs that was off-limits because of yakuza activity. But one of my friends started shit-talking in Japanese to a couple of really well-dressed guys at the next pool table, and the next thing I know, we’re having an informal tournament with them.”

  “How’d you figure out they were yakuza?”

  “The one who did the shit-talking, he said he heard one of them say . . . I don’t know, something. But he suddenly decided we needed to get the hell out of there.” I rolled my eyes. “Except he’d already committed us to this stupid tournament, so we ended up staying another two hours until they’d beaten us.”

  Brent laughed. “Did you let them win?”

  “Let them? Please. I was twenty-two and had the ego to go with it.” I shook my head. “No, I tried like hell to win, but they were that good. When it was over, they bought us beers and then left. To this day I don’t know if they were actually yakuza, or they were trolling us, but they were definitely intimidating.”

  “That’s a hell of a sea story.” He glanced at me, eyes sparkling. “Sounds like you have some good ones.”

  “Oh, I have a few.”

  “Yeah? Tell me.”

  I slid my hands into my pockets and took a deep breath of the crisp air. “Well, there was the time one of my friends got drunk and tried to take a stripper on the boat with him . . .”

  We wandered for a while, Brent laughing as I regaled him with the wild stories of my time at sea. He had a few too, but he’d only done one shipboard deployment so far.

  A comfortable silence settled between us, and we walked through the empty gardens for a while. As we were strolling along a path we’d been down twice already, Brent released a long breath, making a little cloud in the air. “This was nice. Spending the weekend up here.”

  “Yeah, it was.” I tucked my hands into my coat pockets, as much for warmth as to keep them to myself. “I’m glad we did this.”

  He turned to me, and his smile sent a pleasant shiver through me. “If you want to come out here again or maybe hit up some other city . . .”

  “I don’t think you’ll have to twist my arm.”

  “You definitely won’t have to twist mine.” We kept walking for a minute or so, but then he slowed and stopped. “Listen, um . . .” He dropped his gaze, but not before I saw the pink in his cheeks. “As long as we’re in a city where we don’t know anybody, do you, uh . . .” He swallowed. Then he looked in my eyes again. “Are you opposed to being . . . physical? In public?”

  “Depends on how physical you mean.” I grinned. “I seem to recall the first time I fucked you was in public.”

  Brent squirmed. “Yeah, but that was in a gay bar. And in the restroom. It wasn’t quite”—he made a sweeping gesture at our surroundings—“this public.”

  I put a hand on his waist and pulled him a little closer. “It’s always a risk, but right now, it kind of seems worth it.”

  He swallowed again and slid his hands up my chest. “Yeah. It definitely seems worth it.” He held my gaze. I held his. Everything around us seemed to freeze in place while the air between us was damn near vibrating.

  Finally, he wrapped his arms around my neck and I put mine around his waist, and the space between us disappeared.

  His lips were cool thanks to the crisp morning, but they warmed quickly, especially as they parted to let my tongue slide past.

  It was a deep kiss, a passionate one, but still somehow mellow. Like we both knew this wasn’t going to end with sweat and orgasms, and we were both completely okay with that. We’d reached that point where we could kiss—really kiss—without being overwhelmed by the need to rip off each other’s clothes and fuck each other senseless. Maybe because we’d already had so much sex this weekend. Or maybe because we both knew damn well we’d have plenty more.

  Or maybe we’d passed the point of being fuck buddies, and a kiss like this one could exist all by itself. It wasn’t foreplay—it was the main event.

  Which didn’t seem like it should surprise me that much. After all, hadn’t I spent an inordinate amount of time this morning watching him sleep and wishing I could somehow protect him from everything unpleasant in the world? Because making him happy was suddenly absolutely critical?

  I pulled back enough to meet his gaze.

  Oh shit. I was right.

  So much for fuck buddies.

  Now that we were checked out of our hotel, my enthusiasm was definitely tempered by the slowly building disappointment. I didn’t want this weekend to end, but it had to. Anything we did today was just delaying the inevitable.

  I was happy to keep delaying it as long as possible, though. Even if it was a little tougher to work up the excitement like I had on Friday and Saturday, this still beat the hell out of the lonely drive back to Anchor Point and my empty apartment. Or my job.

  I suppressed a shudder as I continued walking beside Will. We’d finished at the gardens, and now we were on the hunt for lunch. Neither of us was exactly starving yet, and Portland was a hell of a foodie town, so we were both enjoying checking out the seemingly endless options.

  I had no id
ea where we were by this point. Portland wasn’t a place I’d visited enough to really know my way around. Will probably didn’t know it well either, but we had GPS on our phones, and push came to shove, we could grab a cab back to the hotel. Getting lost wasn’t a big concern.

  Halfway down some block or another, Will suddenly stopped in his tracks. “Whoa, I didn’t know this town had a Chicken ’N’ Fire.”

  I gave the red and yellow sign a wary side-eye. “Oh God. Not that place.”

  “You’ve had the pleasure, I take it?”

  “Uh-huh. Their wing sauce is fucking brutal.”

  Will chuckled. “So, what you’re saying is . . . you had your ass handed to you by some Chicken McNuggets?”

  “Chicken McNuggets?” I sputtered. “Have you eaten here?”

  His eyebrow rose. “I’ve done their hot wings challenge.”

  “Okay, but have you beaten the challenge?”

  “Well.” He cleared his throat. “Not quite. But I lived to tell about it.”

  “You ever going to try again? See if you can actually beat it?”

  Will’s eyes narrowed a little, and he grinned. “Is that . . .” He cupped his ear and furrowed his brow. “Is that the sound of a gauntlet dropping?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Fine.” He shrugged and met my gaze. “But you’re doing it with me.”

  Oh fuck.

  “Sure.” I gave my best flippant shrug. “Let’s do it.”

  Fuck. Did I really just sign up for this?

  “You sure?” Will smirked. “If that sauce is too much for you, we don’t have—”

  “I’m good.” I nodded toward the restaurant. “Game on. Loser picks up the bill.”

  He laughed. “Better have your credit card standing by, then.” He winked, then pulled open the door and gestured for me to go inside. “After you.”

  Me and my big mouth. I went into the restaurant, and my eyes started watering almost immediately. The fucking air was spicy. By the time we sat down, my neck was already beading with sweat, though I was pretty sure that was because I was nervous as hell about facing down their hot wing challenge. I liked hot stuff as much as the next guy. Hot sauce was sometimes the only way to make ship food palatable, so by the time my first deployment ended, I’d developed a serious tolerance. Right now, it was a question of whether my tolerance was high enough for the kind of hot that, according to the menu, separated the men from the boys?